Operation: Short Stories
by GrandOldPenguin
Summary: A collection of four short "Penguins of Madagascar" stories written 2011–13.
1. Up to You

**"Up to You"  
****Written September 21, 2011  
****Revised 2013**

* * *

As the penguins slept several hours after they had sent Hans to live out his life in the cesspool of Hoboken, Skipper suddenly awoke. "My gut tells me something is not quite right," he thought to himself. "But what?"

Skipper climbed out of his bunk and glanced up at his slumbering team; all were accounted for. He checked the HQ's various security systems; all were on and functioning properly. The coffee maker was set to brew at 0600. Kowalski's Bunsen burner was not lit and the gas was off. The lemurs' boom box in the adjacent habitat was silent.

Then suddenly, Skipper knew what it was. "Marlene!" he shouted. With all that had to be done to take down Hans, he and the other penguins had forgotten that Marlene was still trapped inside Julien's plastic volcano.

Quickly, Skipper grabbed a flashlight and then headed out into the dark. After waddling over to the lemur habitat, he climbed up the side of and then down into the hollow decoration. "Hello, Marlene," he said as his feet made contact with the bottom.

Marlene had half a mind to clock him for such a casual greeting, but she knew better. "I've been stuck in here for hours," she said. "I can't help but feel forgotten, but I really don't want to spend any more time in here complaining about it. I just want to go home, so please carry me out of here."

Skipper shook his head. "No."

Marlene crossed her arms. "Skipper, that's not funny."

"It's not that I don't want to help you, it's that you have to learn how to help yourself. You're going to have to get out of this one on your own."

"And how am I supposed to do that? Sprout wings? Regurgitate a pre-swallowed length of rope and a grappling hook?"

Skipper took one of Marlene's paws in his flippers. "You're a quadruped with claws. You should have an easier time getting out of here than I have. All you have to do is climb up the wall to the top and then down to the ground."

"But why? I thought you were in the business of helping others out of bad situations."

Skipper placed a flipper on Marlene's back. "I am. I would never abandon someone who needs me. But what if I were not around and you found yourself trapped and truly alone? Marlene, I wish I could say that I'll always be there for you, but there are going to be times when it's just going to be you and your shadow. And since you can't stand on your shadow's shoulders, it's ultimately going to be up to you."

Marlene smiled and then walked away from Skipper. She placed a paw on the wall of the volcano and then looked back at him. "You'll at least be willing to catch me if I fall?"

Skipper nodded and then pointed his flashlight in her direction. Marlene then placed all her paws against the wall and carefully began her way upward.


	2. Out of Character

**"Out of Character"  
****Written March 4–April 1, 2013  
****Revised 2013**

* * *

Kowalski peered through the eyepiece of his microscope one last time to be sure of his findings. He made a few marks on his clipboard and then turned to the others. "It's good. You've just witnessed history."

Skipper thrust his flippers into the air. "Yes! We are finally on the verge of a cure to one of the world's most devastating diseases. The stain of hippiedom may soon forever be a thing of the past."

"Actually, Skipper," Kowalski said, "I've only isolated the genetic mutation that causes a predisposition to the 'if it feels good, do it' philosophy. It will likely take years if not decades to perfect the antisense drugs necessary to turn every long-haired, tie-dye-wearing jobless deadbeat into a clean-cut, suit-wearing, productive member of society."

"Well, at least we're moving in the right direction. And you've proven that hippies have defective DNA. That alone ought to win you the Nobel Prize—if the prize committee weren't all hippies themselves, that is."

"I still don't know if this is wise," Private said. "And can I please put down this jar of hippie spit now? It's giving off bad vibes." He looked down just as a bubble rose from the bottom of the jar and popped at the surface. "Ugh! Where did you get this stuff?"

"You don't want to know, Private," Skipper said. "I don't even want to know." He gestured toward a nearby table, and Private set the jar down. "So, why don't you think it's a good idea to cure hippiedom? You're not listening to 'The Age of Aquarius' behind my back, are you?"

"No, no, Skipper! I'm not saying it wouldn't be a good thing to get rid of hippies, I just don't know if this is the way to do it. So much could go wrong by messing around with genetics and DNA and double helices and whatnot. I'm just afraid this could become another Jekyll and Hyde."

Skipper laughed. "That was fiction, Private! Robert Louis Stevenson just pulled stuff out of thin air and put it into a novel without any basis in fact. In the real world, abnormalities can be safely isolated from an individual's genetic makeup. Kowalski's just proven it!"

"I hope you're right. The last time Kowalski tried to cure a condition, 'Littlefoot' destroyed half of Midtown."

"Well worth the price, Private. Marlene's never been better! In fact—"

Suddenly, Maurice climbed down the ladder and entered the HQ. "Hey, guys," he said. "Got a minute?"

Skipper groaned. "Maurice! We're right in the middle of something big and important here. In fact, we're always in the middle of something big and important. It's kind of what we do."

"I'm sorry, Skipper. But King Julien got his head stuck in—well, it's a lot easier to show you than to describe. I could really use an extra hand."

Skipper sighed. "Fine. We'll go."

"Skipper," Kowalski said, "as much fun as getting Julien unstuck sounds, I'm afraid I can't leave at the moment. I only have a narrow window in which to complete the next step in my groundbreaking research."

"That's OK," Maurice said. "I really only need one of you. The king's embarrassed enough as it is."

"I'll do it," Skipper said. "Kowalski, you keep working on the more important mission."

Kowalski nodded, and Skipper and Maurice left the HQ.

After watching Skipper and Maurice leave, Private turned to Kowalski. "So, what is the next step in your research?"

"Molecular cloning," Kowalski said. He picked up a plastic spoon that was sitting on his lab table and then turned to Rico. "Rico, can I have a container of yogurt, please? Blueberry, if possible."

Rico nodded and then regurgitated a six-ounce container of Yoplait.

"You just had your breakfast a little while ago," Private said. "You're hungry again already?"

Kowalski took the container from Rico. "No, Private. If I wanted to eat it, I would have asked for peach. This yogurt is for science."

"I can't see how."

Kowalski tore the foil lid off the cup and then placed the plastic spoon inside. "Molecular cloning is a process by which scientists can create copies of fragments of DNA, such as the hippie mutation I just identified, for further research. It involves combining the fragment to be cloned with a plasmid vector and then introducing this combination into a host organism, often the bacterium _E. coli_. Following me so far, Private?"

"Uh, sure."

"Cell division then takes place, resulting in a colony of bacteria that has the desired recombinant DNA. From these cells, the DNA can then be extracted, studied, and used in experiments."

"That all sounds really ... interesting. But I still don't see how the yogurt is involved in any of this."

"I was just getting to that. Molecular cloning, as I'm sure you now realize, is a very complex process, and as such, doing things the same way a professional human scientist would does not fit into our unit's budget. It would if Skipper didn't buy those gold teeth back in Europe. However, I believe the same result can be achieved by treating the genetic mutation with a chemical and then placing it inside the blueberry yogurt. The mutation should then combine with a _Lactobacillus delbrueckii_ subspecies _bulgaricus_ bacterium and multiply at an accelerated rate."

"So you're going to create a whole bunch of little genetic defects inside the yogurt?"

Kowalski sighed. "Well, I suppose if you want to put it in layman's terms ..."

Kowalski set the yogurt down and reached for a nearby Erlenmeyer flask labeled "deoxyribonucleic disgronificator." He swirled the clear chemical for a moment and then filled a pipette with two milliliters of the liquid. Carefully, Kowalski added one milliliter of the chemical to the drop of water that the genetic mutation was suspended in, which was in the well of a seventy-five-by-twenty-five-millimeter concavity slide. He waited ten minutes and then added the remaining milliliter before transferring the contents of the well into the yogurt.

Just as Kowalski was beginning to stir the mutation into the yogurt, Skipper returned to the HQ and waddled over to the others.

"How'd it go?" Private asked.

"Ring-tail's free," Skipper said. He chuckled. "Maurice was right—I can't even begin to describe how his head was stuck. You guys missed out on a great laugh." He chuckled again and then pointed at Kowalski's microscope. "So, did you complete the next step in Operation: The Dream?"

Kowalski nodded and then held out the yogurt cup. "Would you like to have a—"

"Ooh, I love blueberry. Thanks." He took the cup from Kowalski, and before anyone could stop him, he placed a big spoonful in his beak and swallowed.

"Gah!" Kowalski snatched the cup back. "Have a look, Skipper! I didn't mean eat it!" He looked into the container and then back to Skipper.

"How old is that yogurt, Kowalski? It tastes a bit ... odd." He moved his tongue around inside his beak a little. "It tastes kind of ... I don't know, _groovy_? Like how yogurt might have tasted back in the sixties even though I never lived during the sixties." He twitched slightly and then smiled. "It tastes like peace."

Kowalski stared at his leader. "Um"—his beak began to quiver—"p-p-peace, sir?"

"Yeah. Peace and love and nonconformity all blended together into one big Kumbaya of flavors. I love it!"

Private and Rico turned toward each other. "Oh boy," Rico said.

"No, no, no, this can't be happening," Kowalski said. He held a flipper in front of Skipper. "Sir, how many flippers do you—"

Skipper pushed Kowalski's flipper away. "Hey, man, you have to stop calling me 'sir.' We're all equal citizens of the world, my friend. That's what this revolution's all about!"

Kowalski shook his head and sighed. "You don't know who you are, do you?"

"Sure I do! My name is Bobby Chestnut Fonda Bellbottom Proletariat Yoga Mushroom Moonbat, and I believe so deeply in this hippie movement that my blood runs tie-dye."

Kowalski looked down as he covered his face with his flippers. "This is not good."

"What was that?" Private asked.

The scientist uncovered his face. "I said this is not good, Private. You appear to have been right that playing around with genetics might trigger unintended consequences, though not in a way that one might have expected. But Skipper's symptoms make it undeniably clear that our once-fearless leader now has the mind of a pacifist and the spine of pudding. He's turned into something radical, dark, and sinister. He's turned into a hippie."

"What do we do?"

"There are only two things that we can do. First we induce vomiting. Then we pray."


	3. Election Night

**"Election Night"  
****Written December 31, 2012  
****Revised 2013**

* * *

_**November 6, 2012**_

The penguins were on the edges of their seats—or rather their cinderblocks—as they continued to watch the election results come in. It was a little past 11:00 p.m. and Barack Obama was ahead 244 electoral votes to Mitt Romney's 203, but there was still a path to victory for Romney if the most critical states went the right way.

But then, an election alert came up on the TV screen. "Channel 1 is now projecting that Barack Obama will win the key battleground state of Ohio," Chuck Charles said as the latest returns from the Buckeye State were put up. "Though we continue to wait for decisions in other states, it is now virtually certain that the president will win reelection."

Skipper's right eye twitched, then his left. He turned to Kowalski. "Kowalski, cover the private's earholes." Kowalski did as instructed and then Skipper let out a yell. "We're all fished! I'm fished! You're fished! The whole country is fished! It's the biggest fish up ever! We're all completely fished!"

Once Skipper stopped yelling minced oaths, Kowalski let go of Private's earholes. "I still heard—again," the young penguin said.

"I'm not surprised," Kowalski said. "Flippers are a rather poor soundproofing material."

Skipper looked at the TV once more and sighed. "So close to having an honorable commander-in-chief, one worthy of the salutes of his soldiers. I should have taken action when I still had the chance."

Kowalski gave Skipper a puzzled look. "What kind of action, sir? I'm also disappointed that we will never serve a President Romney, but what could you have done to make things turn out differently?"

"I could have exposed the conspiracy."

"Which conspiracy?"

"The one involving the government controlling the weak-minded through cell phone ringtones. It's the only thing that can explain how we just got stuck with four more years of this bullfish."


	4. Plight of the My Car! Guy

**"Plight of the 'My Car!' Guy"  
****Written September 4, 2011  
****Revised 2013**

* * *

The man sighed and then dialed his cell phone. "Hi, I would like to file a claim for the damage my car sustained this morning," he said when his call was answered by an agent at the auto insurance company.

"What is the nature of the damage to your vehicle, sir?" the agent asked.

"It's totaled. There was an explosion of some sort as I was walking back to where I had parked it on Fifth Avenue. There are parts scattered all over the place."

The agent took a glance at the caller ID to see the name and phone number of the man she was speaking with. She knew it. "Again, Paul?" she said as she rolled her eyes. "Seriously? Do you know how many claims you've filed with us since we've been your insurance provider?"

"Sixteen. But that's beside the point. The point is that just as soon as I acquire a new vehicle, the thing blows up on me. I seriously believe that someone is out to get me. In fact, I recall seeing four small shadows fleeing from the area after the explosion occurred this morning. I think there may be a gang of dwarfs involved."

The agent shook her head. "I beg to differ. At this point, I'm highly suspecting fraud. As soon as I clear it with my supervisor, I'm going to terminate your policy with us and refer your claims to our fraud division."

Paul sighed. "Ma'am, you've got to believe me. I certainly understand if you need to raise my rate a little again, but I'm not trying to deceive anybody. My cars just keep blowing up, and that's the truth."


End file.
